


'Cause There Are Stars, Up Above

by casfallsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 8x23 coda, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Making Out, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casfallsinlove/pseuds/casfallsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An 8x23 coda, in which Dean Winchester is the cornerstone keeping the universe (and a fallen angel) together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Cause There Are Stars, Up Above

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been niggling at me since the finale, but I only got my lazy ass in gear and wrote it today. It's the fluffy counterpart to the angst I've been writing recently.
> 
> Title from the song 'Lost in My Mind' by The Head and the Heart.

The first time that Castiel gets drunk (as a human, anyway), he is on the roof of the bunker.

It’s a place he comes often, discovered accidentally as he explored on his initial days of living there. A small hatch in the ceiling much like an attic, a ladder waiting to be lowered, and then cold fresh air and the night sky. Presumably the Men of Letters built it as some sort of emergency escape, though Castiel can’t understand how being thirty-feet in the air with no other means of reaching the ground is especially helpful. Perhaps a last resort.

Nevertheless, he enjoys being up here, particularly in the evenings. He relishes in the height, the wind that whips through his hair and causes his eyes to sting. The surrounding darkness so void of human activity, providing a compressing blanket that softens everything (though he’s more of a fan of looking down than up).

Castiel sits, now, on the small ledge that runs around the edge of the roof, his legs dangling over it. In the distance an owl hoots forlornly. A plane rumbles past overhead. Castiel has never been on a plane. He thinks perhaps he would like to. Though he imagines it would be painfully slow and possibly an unpleasant experience. In fact, most of what he’s experienced so far as a human has been unpleasant.

Alcohol though, alcohol is _good_. He is aware that this particular bottle of scotch, with condensation collecting on the glass under his clammy palm, is Dean’s and that Dean will probably be displeased to find it gone. But neither he nor Sam had noticed when he had slipped from the room, too engrossed in discussing their recent hunt (which Castiel was not invited to), so he doubts that they will notice one missing bottle. Not for a while, anyway.

So Castiel gulps the amber liquid. It doesn’t taste as good as the chamomile tea he’s grown to like, and it burns his throat, but it’s a nice sort of a burn. The last time that he’d done this had been very different. It had taken an awful lot more than half a bottle to get him nearly as drunk as he currently is, and the taste and sensation had been muted by his angelic powers.

Not anymore. Now he feels everything, quite acutely, on a very visceral level. He doesn’t like it much.

The owl hoots again. Perhaps he is lonely, too.

“Cas?” Castiel jumps violently at the sound of Dean’s voice. The bottle slips from his loose fingers and tumbles to the ground, where it lands with a loud crash of breaking glass a few seconds later. This is where he should swear, Castiel thinks, but he never really has gotten the hang of that.

“What the hell are you doing up here, man?” Dean asks, his entire body emerging through the hatch now, concern etched into the lines around his eyes. It’s a familiar expression of late, and Castiel doesn’t like it. He turns away.

“I _was_ drinking my troubles away, but you just effectively put a stop to that.”

Dean huffs, his footsteps scuffing on the rough concrete as he comes closer. “You’re a snarky son of a bitch lately, you know that?”

Castiel narrows his eyes but doesn’t look around. “I do. You tell me often enough.”

The footsteps come to halt a couple of paces behind him. “What are you doing up here?” Dean repeats, obviously not satisfied with Castiel’s initial answer.

“I like being high up. And it’s quiet. Usually.”

He can feel the air shift as Dean hovers uncertainly, clearly unsure what to do next. Finally he says, “You’re awfully close to the edge there, Cas.” This statement makes Castiel roll his eyes, a recently acquired habit.

“I’m not going to fall, Dean.”

The irony isn’t lost on either of them.

Eventually Dean sighs in resignation and carefully eases himself onto the ledge beside him. For someone who has spent years complaining about Castiel’s lack of social graces when it comes to personal space, he doesn’t hesitate to sit close enough for their thighs to press together, elbows knocking as he wiggles and gets comfortable.

Castiel watches from the corner of his eye, vaguely amused, as Dean looks down, gulps, and looks up again with a shaky exhalation. “You like being up here?”

A short nod. “I do.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence for a while. The warmth from Dean’s body seeps through Castiel’s trenchcoat. It’s not altogether unpleasant.

“Wanna tell me why you came up here with nothing but booze for company instead of coming to me?” Dean asks eventually, but he sounds hesitant, like he’s unsure whether he really wants to hear the answer.

“You were busy.”

“No I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation with Sam.”

Dean laughs, but he doesn’t sound that amused. “Dude, please. Any interruption would have been welcome, believe me.”

“I’ll bear that in mind for next time.”

A disgruntled noise catches in the back of Dean’s throat. “Is there gonna be a next time, then?”

Castiel sighs. He wishes he still had the bottle; his fingers feel twitchy and restless. He picks at a stray thread on the cuff of the plaid shirt that protrudes from his coat sleeve. One of the many items of clothing Castiel had been presented with that used to belong to the brothers. Everything is a size too big for him, and they’ve promised that they’re going to get him some clothes of his own soon, but Castiel doesn’t really mind. The shirt he’s wearing now is his favourite. It’s an old one of Dean’s, slightly worn, with a ragged hole on the back of the collar. But it’s soft from hundreds of washes and smells faintly of the Impala.

“Undoubtedly,” he says now to Dean. The other man nods like he knew that was the answer all along.

“Cas, if there’s anything I can do—”

“There isn’t,” Castiel interrupts, for he’s heard this many times. Then he feels a twinge of guilt, for Dean looks dejected, and adds, “But I appreciate your concern. And… next time I will come to you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The wind picks up, branches creaking in the distance, and something slams closed somewhere below them. A window. Sam, probably. The owl cries out again. A shiver crawls up Castiel’s spine—a gesture that he was always familiar with but doesn’t like now that he truly experiences it for himself. The hairs on his arms stand on end and he swears he can feel every single one. It’s excruciating.

“I don’t like being human, Dean.”

Dean sighs, his voice rough when he replies. “Yeah, man, I know you don’t.”

“It’s all … so much. All the time. Constantly feeling things, both physical and emotional. It’s overwhelming. How do you do it?” He’s surprised by the quaver to his voice, the burning of his corneas that he’s fairly sure has nothing to do with the wind.

Almost imperceptibly, Dean shifts closer still. “A good man once told me,” he says quietly. “That you get through a week at a time, and you make yourself smile at the end of it. Even if you feel like shit. You smile, because you’re still standing.”

“Does that work?” Castiel asks dubiously.

Dean shrugs and it jostles Castiel’s entire body. “Helped keep me together after I lost you and Bobby,” he reasons casually, though his eyes look bright. “Y’know, if Sam and me are a tad overbearing, you can feel free to tell us to fuck off,” he adds a second later.

At this Castiel does smile. When he’s feeling especially heartbroken, Sam and Dean have taken it upon themselves to implement various methods of distraction in an effort to cheer him up.

Sam will take him into the library, pull a seemingly random book off a shelf and discuss it with him for hours, reading passages aloud and comparing it to similar works. Castiel enjoys this. He’s always taken pleasure in reading, in knowledge, and Sam makes for an excellent sparring partner as they take turns in playing devil’s advocate.

Dean is gruffer in his approach, which often varies. Sometimes he will lead Castiel into the shooting range, patiently teach him how to use a gun, one hand steady on Cas’s hip and the other on his wrist as he adjusts his posture.

Occasionally he will get him out of the bunker, take him to a diner (Castiel has grown partial to strawberry milkshakes, lately) or to buy groceries, or even just to nearest open space they can find that has a bench.

Even more frequently, when Cas is feeling too out of sorts to make the effort to leave the bunker, Dean will simply come to rest beside him on his bed, often with some kind of food item in his hands, and is perfectly content to sit in silence with his feet up, socked toes wriggling as he settles back against the pillows (Castiel likes this distraction the best).

He’s not really sure how to express his gratitude to the two of them. He doesn’t deserve their kindness. Once upon a time, maybe, but not anymore. So he simply says, “I don’t want you to fuck off.”

The laugh that escapes Dean this time is genuine, and it settles in Castiel’s chest like a sharp tingle of electricity. “Glad to hear it, because I ain’t going anywhere, man. And listen, me and you, Sam and Kevin, we’re gonna fix this. You’re not alone, all right?”

It’s an empty promise and they both know it, for a solution is a very long way off, if it even exists at all. Castiel wants to say thank you anyway, though, but what comes out of his mouth ends up being, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

He doesn’t reply straight away, isn’t sure where to begin. _Everything_ just about covers it, but apparently Dean doesn’t like that answer very much. He swings his legs back and forth, his heels hitting brick with a soothing repetitiveness. Eventually he settles for, “I’m sure when we met you weren’t expecting to have to fix my mistakes so often.”

Dean is quiet for a little while. They don’t look at each other, and Castiel focuses on the dull glow of the city in the distance. “Maybe,” Dean says slowly, “but I also know that you’ve cleaned up just as many of my messes.”

Castiel shakes his head rapidly, but it makes him feel nauseous so he stops. “I find the opposite to be true, Dean. The people around you are the ones who, as you might say, _screw up_. Sam has, I certainly have. Your father did. You may have made unwise decisions in the past, but that’s inherently human and nothing to be ashamed of.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Dean snorts and says, with false bravado, “We really need to keep you away from the booze.”

Impatiently, Castiel snaps, “No. Dean, listen to me. You are the calm at the eye of the storm, the man with a solution. You have brought Sam back to himself countless times. You tried desperately to stop me when I was working with Crowley. When you were just a boy you took the place of your father while he was hunting. You averted the apocalypse when everyone else had given up. You’ve even rebuilt your car from scratch. Dean, you are the cornerstone that holds the universe together.”

He twists carefully on the ledge so that his body is angled towards Dean’s. Dean, whose eyes are glittering as he stares straight ahead. Dean, who is and always will be the Righteous Man. Dean, whose voice is rough when he speaks. “How—how can you have such faith in me, Cas?”

“My father has let me down. My brothers and sisters have let me down, manipulated me beyond self-recognition. You, however, never have.” Castiel exhales heavily. “Despite the fact that I’ve repeatedly failed to return the favour.”

They aren’t looking at each other, they can’t, for reasons neither of them want to dwell on. But Dean’s warm palm finds Castiel’s twisting fingers, stilling them, grasping them tightly. “Don’t do that,” Dean warns. “I don’t want to hear that crap, about how you belonged in Purgatory and you need to pay penance. I would say this,” he gestures at Castiel with his free hand, “is punishment enough, wouldn’t you?”

“This,” Castiel counters, sweeping his hand in a similar fashion across his body, “is also my fault.”

Dean growls angrily, releasing his grip on Castiel’s hand. “Dammit, Cas. You’re so fucking noble sometimes. This is no one’s fault except Metatron. That son of a bitch isn’t gonna know what’s hit him when I get my hands on him.”

“Your conviction that you’re going to find him is admirable,” concedes Castiel. “Though foolhardy.”

“Ain’t nothing foolhardy about it. I’m gonna get your grace back, Cas. Promise. If only so you’ll stop moping ‘round the bunker and stealing my scotch.”

“Thank you, Dean.” The words don’t seem enough, somehow, but he puts every ounce of sincerity he can muster into them, and wishes they were still holding hands.

“You’re welcome, Cas,” Dean chuckles, with an affectionate eye-roll. “Now can we go back inside? It’s fucking freezing and I have something I wanna show you.”

Joints stiff and cold in a way that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to, Castiel scrambles up from the ledge and follows Dean back inside, the warmth welcoming and familiar. There’s a faint tang of garlic floating up from somewhere, and Castiel thinks that Sam might be cooking. He likes it when Sam cooks. There’s less care put into it than when Dean is in the kitchen, but his pride in delivering a perfectly edible meal is endearing—besides, it wasn’t that long ago that Sam could hardly eat, let alone cook.

“What is it you wish to show me?” Castiel asks of Dean, as he follows him down the meandering hallways.

“You’ll see,” Dean grins. “Sam and I picked it up on our way back.”

Castiel realizes where they’re heading and frowns. “It’s in my bedroom?”

“Yep.”

When they enter the room and Castiel sees the new addition to his meagre belongings, his heart swells in a kind of way that makes him want to cry. Not for the first time, he resents complicated human emotions.

“A television?” he says weakly.

“Yeah,” Dean nods, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was my idea. I mean, I know you love TV. You said when you came back from Purgatory that you missed it, and I—I know you’ve been having nightmares or whatever, and figured you can watch it when you wake up, ‘stead of, well, whatever it is you do now. It’s not a very big one, sorry, but y’know, we’re not made of money. I just wanted—”

But whatever Dean wanted to do isn’t clear, because before he can finish Castiel smashes their mouths together.

It’s a shock to himself as much as Dean, and he’s tempted to blame the lingering effects of the scotch. It can’t really be called a kiss; there’s no finesse, no gentleness, no movement. It’s harsh and still and hard, and Dean chokes on a gasp.

When Castiel pulls away, he feels a small surge of pride at seeing Dean so flushed and speechless. The pride is hastily swallowed by fear though, when he realises that thirty seconds have passed and still Dean hasn’t said anything.

Carefully, Castiel unsticks his hands from Dean’s shoulders and clears his throat. “I—I am sorry. I was feeling … overwhelmed. I apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable.”

Something in Dean’s eyes seems to come back to life; he swallows hard, before placing two warm, dry palms over Castiel’s cheeks. “Stop talking,” he demands, pointlessly, for Castiel lost all coherent thought the moment their skin touched.

When their lips meet for the second time, it’s a proper kiss. Soft and easy, Castiel’s fingers twisting in Dean’s shirt as Dean’s hands move down from his face and into the folds of his trenchcoat. Then it becomes hungry. Castiel feels a swoop in his stomach that demands _more_ , and he isn’t going to wait to get it.

He’s done this before, with Daphne, a couple of times, though he always found it to be somewhat of a chore. But he knows the mechanics, isn’t as inexperienced as he once was. Besides that, he knows Dean on a level that may exceed ordinary friendships. He knows exactly what it is that makes Dean tick, exactly how to draw that guttural groan from his throat. So he does it, now, his tongue drawing a path across Dean’s jaw and up his neck, where he bites gently on the delicate skin behind his ear.

“ _Jesus_ , Cas…” Dean moans, breathless, his hands bruising on Castiel’s hips. They find each other’s mouths again, kiss each other heady and furious and fast, a burning desperation sending what must be fire through Castiel’s veins, for his body feels alive and buzzing. Every nerve-ending firing at once, he’s suddenly hyperaware of his own skin.

It’s passionate, and he _needs_ it, but it’s equally terrifying in its intensity. “Dean,” he murmurs, though he doesn’t know what he’s asking for. “Dean, _Dean_.”

“It’s all right, Cas, I got you,” Dean assures him, nosing into Castiel’s hair. His arms wrap around his waist tighter, pulling their bodies together. Dean is a hard, hot line against him, steady and firm—and this is by far the nicest thing Castiel has experienced yet.

Of their own volition, he’s sure, Castiel’s fingers bury themselves in Dean’s hair, tugging at the short, soft strands until Dean groans again, hips stuttering against Castiel’s. Then it’s all urgency, a burning need to touch and feel and taste.

There’s too many layers of clothes, Castiel thinks, but he can’t get his fingers to stop shaking long enough to do anything about it—he silently curses whoever it was that invented button-up shirts.

Dean’s hands are everywhere, all at once. His chest, his hips, his neck, his ass. They slip under Castiel’s (Dean’s) shirt and slide across the flat planes of his stomach, coming to rest on the very-nearly-faded pink scars from Crowley’s recent attack, which Castiel suspects won’t ever disappear properly now that he’s lost his ‘angel mojo’.

It’s hot and heavy, and for a split second Castiel imagines that he’s flying again—he feels exhilarated, free to be anything he wants, completely and utterly content. And then—

“Dean! Cas! Dinner’s on the table!”

Sam’s distant shout shatters the bubble and the two men reluctantly part with equal moans. Dean’s forehead falls to Castiel’s shoulder. He’s panting heavily as he mutters, “Fuck. _Fuck_.”

“Yes, please,” Castiel quips breathlessly, carding his fingers through Dean’s hair again, but it’s infinitely sweeter than before. A laugh bubbles from Dean’s throat and he looks up, grinning.

“See. Snarky son of a bitch.”

It gives Castiel great pleasure to see Dean like this—thoroughly debauched and ruffled and turned on. They hold each other’s gaze for a minute, before smiling simultaneously, and Castiel imagines that Dean is maybe thinking the same thing.

He opens his mouth, though he’s not sure what he intends to say, when Sam yells again, louder than before. “Guys! Come on, it’s getting cold!”

Dean grumbles something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like _fucking cockblocker_ , but Castiel can’t be sure. “Coming, _Mom_!” Dean shouts back, shaking his head.

Instinctively, Castiel makes a small noise of protest and grabs at Dean’s wrist. Dean laughs again. He presses his lips lightly to Castiel’s spit-slick, kiss-swollen ones, before making a vain attempt to smooth their hair back down. “Later,” he promises, with another kiss, feather-light. “Sam will throw a bitch fit if his precious lasagna gets cold. But yeah, later.”

Castiel beams at him, something which apparently causes Dean amusement for he shakes his head and mutters, “What the hell am I gonna do with you, Cas?”

It’s affectionate, Castiel knows, but he isn’t sure how he’s supposed to respond so he doesn’t, merely sweeps a thumb across Dean’s cheekbone. Dean dislodges it with a grin before weaving Castiel’s fingers through his own and tugging. “C'mon. If we don’t leave this bedroom right now, I’m never going to.”

Yes, Castiel thinks as he follows the sound of Sam’s increasingly frustrated shouts, there are many unpleasant things about being human. But sometimes, something good happens. And that something good counteracts the something bads and makes everything feel magnificent.

He chances a sideways glance at Dean as he explains to Sam in no uncertain terms that he interrupted something and therefore owes him for _life_ , and is utterly convinced that, yes, Dean is magnificent.


End file.
